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Is 18-year-old Declan McKenna the voice of Generation Z? Alice Vincent meets him

With his mop-top haircut, guitar and radio-friendly sound, Ed Sheeran has created the template for boys who dream of world domination in the pop industry, as the dozens of hopefuls who imitate him on X Factor every year suggest. But, while most of the emerging teenage wannabes sing about clubs, girls and thwarted romance, one of them is reviving the dusty old art of the protest song with music that riffs on politics, corruption scandals and fake news.

Declan McKenna wrote his breakout hit, Brazil, when he was 15, as part of his music GCSE. A polemical attack on Fifa corruption and the 2014 World Cup, it helped him...